Friday, June 27, 2008

Joan Of Arc - Boo Human

Done with the young and hungry rat-race of band-life, Joan of Arc now exists at the pace their real lives allow. Principal songwriter Tim Kinsella writes songs constantly, but now feels little urgency to put records together and expel them upon an indifferent and cynical world.

By combining one week of studio time, a stack of songs and a sign-up sheet allowing participants to drop in whenever they could, each track on Boo Human is as wildly different and uniquely constructed as the groups who produced them.

The combination of 14 musicians whose previous collaborations include Wilco, Iron & Wine, Bonnie Prince Billy, Beth Orton, and Prefuse 73 yields a truly diverse record that is as intense as it is intimate.

Marked by intricate guitar melodies, noncognitive wailing and tense instrumentals, Boo Human is Joan of Arc's most accessible, cohesive album since 1997's How Memory Works. From the addictively syncopated "Laughter Reflected Back" to the unignorable, poetic "9/11 2," Joan of Arc truly proves that doing it their way is the right way.

"Joan of Arc is the most musically ambitious, emotionally shaded, and self-consciously labyrinthine pop group to slip down the pike since literate leprechaun of love Green Garthside pitched poststructuralist woo to Jacques Derrida back in '82." - City Pages

"Among the act's considerable strengths is an ability to assimilate so many sounds within the framework of songs that are, at their core, sparse guitar meditations." - Boston Globe

"Depending on the listener- and often on the album - Joan of Arc is either avant-garde rock at its most literate and creative or its most addlepated and precious." - Magnet